Blake's Eleven
by Kerr Avonsen
Summary: Resistance may be futile, but they keep doing it. A collection of drabbles and vigniettes set in the Blake's 7 universe.
1. Hope

**Hope**

by Kathryn Andersen

**B7 Friday:** Hope/Peace/Joy  
**Date:** 24th December 2004  
**Words:** 100

* * *

Hope is very dangerous.

When the propaganda division acquired the recording of Blake's demise, they thought they'd found a goldmine. It turned into their worst nightmare. The citizenry reacted in all the wrong ways.

The news was slanted as a falling out of thieves. Yet those who believed it completely came away with this nugget of truth: Blake had managed to evade the Administration for four years. That gave them hope. Others assumed it was propaganda, a mass of desperate lies. Either Blake wasn't dead, or he was a martyr. That gave them hope.

The Federation toppled two years later.


	2. Transaction

Transaction

by Kathryn Andersen

**Words:** 270  
**Summary:** Why was Avon so quick to give in when Dorian threatened Dayna in Rescue?  
Dialogue-only piece, written in 1992

* * *

**Odd of Avon, to give in like that.**

You'd rather be dead?

**Of course not! He didn't have to give in so quickly, though.**

"Never look a gift horse in the mouth," I always say.

**_You_ wouldn't be able to.**

I'll have you know-

**You've never been near a horse in your life.**

It wasn't just because it was _you_. He would have done the same for any of us.

**You hope.**

He did on Kairos.

**And Tarrant didn't. "Sorry, Dayna," was all I got from him.**

Nice to know you're wanted, isn't it?

**This time. But three times is too much to hope for.**

I don't know. I think he'd give in.

**Avon? Give in? I'm sure he's learned better.**

Yeah, maybe he _has_ learned... maybe that's why he gives in immediately, without the slightest hesitation. Strange, when the lesson wasn't even for him.

**Lesson? What lesson?**

Blake's lesson. I wonder if Blake would give in straight away? Somehow I don't think so. Still too reckless.

**There's nothing wrong with reckless living.**

In moderation. Blake was never moderate.

**And Avon is? That's why he gives in?**

No. Raiker. That's why he gives in.

**What's a raker?**

Not _a_ raker - "Raiker". Hostages. On the London. Blake, Avon and Jenna were holed up in the computer room. Every thirty seconds he shot a hostage 'til they came out. And even when they came out, he went on shooting. They were friends of mine.

**I'm sorry.**

That's all right. You just don't forget something like that. It seems Avon hasn't forgotten either... Funny that.

* * *

From an idea of Ana Dorfstad's.


	3. First Time

**First Time**

by Kathryn Andersen

**Words:** 100  
This is my first b7friday drabble, and the theme was "firsts". For the b7friday challenge: 21 May 2004

* * *

The gun was slippery in his clammy palm. He hadn't thought a blaster would be so quiet. His own breathing sounded loud as a steam press in the silence. He tried to avoid looking at the black and red ruin of the dealer's face. He swallowed bile. No time for that now, no time. Get the visas. That's what you came for. His breath came short as the pain in his side flared up, and he realized it wasn't just sweat that slicked his grip on the gun, but blood. His own blood.

Blood stained his hands. His first death.


	4. Bridging the Distance

**Bridging the Distance**

by Kathryn Andersen

**B7 Friday:** Distance  
**Date:** 9 July 2004  
**Words:** 100  
**Summary:** Missing scene from "Sarcophagus".

* * *

He told himself it was purely pragmatic: they couldn't afford to be one man down. The fact that he'd been the first to notice her absence, that was merely superior observation, not personal concern.

How to bring her out of her little self-imposed exile? He was no psychotech, with smart words and slippery phrases. What did he know about comfort, anyway? Alien, she was as far away as Auron was from Earth. All he had was honesty.

How could one bridge the distance? One barrier at a time.

"What is it?"

"Well, it looks like a door, and it's closed."


	5. Prior Knowledge

**Prior Knowledge**

by Kathryn Andersen

**Challenge:** B7 Friday: Prior Knowledge  
**Date:** 11 June 2004  
**Words:** 100  
**Summary:** What haunts Blake.

* * *

Recognition. How he dreaded it, so much more than the others did. All they had to fear was bounties, while he... he feared the holes in his mind. How much had the torturers ripped out, in their psychological makeover?

He dreamed about it, a room full of faces he didn't know, each one reproachful. "Don't you know me?" they whispered. "I died for you. I died for the cause. I died from your betrayals. Don't you know me, Blake?"

Blood on his hands, and he didn't even know who shed it.

He dreaded recognition, not from enemies, but from friends.


	6. The Oldest Profession

**The Oldest Profession**

by Kathryn Andersen

**B7 Friday:** Professional Woman  
**Date:** 23 July 2004

* * *

They said it was the oldest profession in the world, but she wasn't paid for it. Instead, she was payment, for a debt her family owed. Her owners taught her the pleasing of men; dressing; humility. But reading was forbidden.

She learned things despite this. She learned that cheerfulness was more pleasant than despair. She learned that crumbs of joy could be snatched for moments, if one was as quiet and cunning as a mouse.

This was no crumb; it was a whole world.

They said it was the oldest profession in the world, but it wasn't hers any more.


	7. Small Stones

**Small Stones**

by Kathryn Andersen

**Challenge:** B7 Friday: Original Characters  
**Date:** 17th September 2004  
**Words:** 250  
**Summary:** It is the small stones that start an avalanche.

* * *

El called just after I got in from my shift. She looked worried.

"Thank the Goodness you're there! It's Family business. Come."

The screen went blank.

I sighed. El had a gift for taking in waifs and strays. The fact that she'd called me meant that this one was in need of medical attention. I grabbed my emergency kit and went.

She gave me a hug as I came in.

"You're going to get caught some day," I said as we went toward her cunningly hidden back room.

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Way," she replied.

"They're not going to martyr you, they're going to rehabilitate you!" A fate I thought much worse.

"The truth is the truth," she said.

I couldn't argue there. Because if they caught her, I'd be in the next cell.

The man on the cot was definitely not a waif. Dark hair, and a nose that belonged on an Old-Calendar coin. El had tried to bandage his wound, but it was still seeping. I set to work. Blaster burn, not too nasty but bad enough. The fact that he wasn't concious was worrying. But as Da had said, why pray when you can worry? I prayed. And worked.

The Word says that He knows the end from the beginning. I didn't even know it was a Beginning, let alone the what the End would be; that I was a link in the chain that would lead to the New Federation.


	8. Death And Choices

**Death and Choices**

by Kathryn Andersen

**Challenge:** B7 Friday: First Lines  
**Date:** 15th October 2004  
**Universe:** Blake's 7/Lexx  
**Words:** 300  
**Summary:** An improbable conversation in a bar.

* * *

I am dead. That gives me objectivity. No feelings to cloud the judgement, no desires to bias one's conclusions; unlike the man in front of me. However much he considers himself rational and objective, he isn't. No living being can be.

"You killed him," I said. "It is your responsibility."

"Tell me something I don't know." His voice was slightly slurred.

"You appear not to know that getting drunk will only give you a headache, not a solution."

"There's a solution for this?" He snorted.

"I myself have been responsible for many deaths. They caused me no pain, because I am dead."

"You wear it well."

"His Shadow reanimated me."

"Tell me again why I'm talking to a man who's obviously insane."

"Because you chose to. And I am not insane."

"Because I chose to," he repeated. "Are there really any choices left for me?"

"Certainly. You can choose to live, or you can chose to die. Right now, you are chosing to die."

"Spare me the psychotech talk."

"I am not a psychotech, I am merely making a logical extrapolation of your present circumstances."

He glared at me, then he glared at his drink, but he didn't answer. He knew I was right.

"Blake and his stupid causes..."

"I died for a cause. That did not make the cause stupid, even though, at that time, we did not succeed."

"But you succeeded later?"

"I destroyed His Shadow, yes, but only to unintentionally unleash an even greater terror."

"How very cheerful."

We sat in silence for a while; he swirled the amber liquid in his glass, but did not drink it.

"Choices... It all comes down to choices in the end."

"What do you chose?"

"It's no choice at all really." He put his glass down. "I choose to live."


	9. Happy Endings

**Happy Endings**

by Kathryn Andersen

**Challenge:** B7 Friday: "happy endings"  
**Date:** 4 June 2004  
**Words:** 100  
**Summary:** Does anyone ever consider what happens after the happy ending?

* * *

She'd been reading the fairy tales again. They were so sexist! (The word, along with the books, had come from Uncle Blake). Why did the princes always have the adventures, not the princesses? Not that she hadn't tried, but Father always spoiled her fun. He always seemed to know what she was planning. He was mean. She hated him. Mother was different. Mother had gone on real adventures; she wouldn't let anybody stop her, not her whole planet. Why she'd fallen in love with Father was a complete mystery.

"They lived happily ever after." Humph.

Happy endings make unhappy beginnings.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

For those who are curious, this is set in the "Butterfly Effect" universe, though a long way down the track.


	10. Naming

**Naming**

by Kathryn Andersen

**Words:** 100  
A Zen drabble for AstroGirl2. Written in 2006.

* * *

_To be completely known - it's like innocence._

The one called Jenna Stannis had many alien concepts in her mind. Striving, and its opposite, peace; desire, passion, freedom, and its dark cousin, disobedience. And a sense of self.

Self is an illusion. There is just existance. And obedience.

"Who are you?"

She thinks this one is a person? She is mistaken. Yet her self-nature has need of a name, a label. What had been in her mind when she was thinking of this one? Peace. And understanding. And a lack of self.

She even had a name for the concept.

"Zen."


	11. Ace in the Hole

**Ace in the Hole**

by Kathryn Andersen

Livejournal ficlet challenge, details at end. Requested by: vilakins  
**Words:** 400  
**Universe:** Blake's 7/Red Dwarf  
**Summary:** Tarrant and Soolin get unexpected help. But remember, this is Blake's 7, not Star Trek. Written in 2004.

* * *

"We're outnumbered."

"Bravo! The man can count."

"Can you shoot as fast as you talk?"

"Faster."

Tarrant and Soolin exchanged fire with the squad of troopers. Then one of the troopers fell whom neither of them had shot at. Tarrant caught a glimpse of brown hair, a pale face, a brown leather-clad sleeve poking around the corner of a building behind the squad.

"I don't believe it."

"What, you don't believe that we might actually encounter an unexpected, unknown ally? You're right, I don't believe it either."

"Oh, he isn't unknown. That's my cousin. Which is a problem, because Arn is dead."

"Yes, that _would_ be rather a problem."

They concentrated on shooting, though Tarrant was off his form because he kept on looking at their mysterious ally.

"I don't think he's an android," he remarked. "His shooting style is too human."

"They make androids that can shoot like that?"

"My brother was killed by one."

"Sorry."

Soon there were only a few troopers left. The trap had turned into an ambush.

"He could be a clone, but who would want to clone my cousin?"

"I thought the Clonemasters were destroyed in the Galactic War?"

"Well, they could have done it before the war, or maybe on Auron before it was destroyed, but it doesn't seem likely, does it?"

The unaccountable Arn waved his arm at them, gesturing them to come over to him. They stepped around the troopers' bodies and over to his side. He clapped Tarrant on the shoulder.

"Saw you were in a spot of bother, old chum, so I thought I'd lend a hand. Not that you'd really need it, eh, Sparkles?"

"_Sparkles_?" Soolin exclaimed.

"And who's the lovely lady?" He flashed a brilliant smile at Soolin, which outshone Tarrant's smile like a sun is outshone by a supernova. Soolin blinked.

"You are _not_ my cousin Arn!" Tarrant said grimly, pointing his gun at the stranger. "You aren't even a good imitation. Arn _never_ called me 'Sparkles'."

Before 'Arn' could blink, Soolin had her gun pointed at his heart. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't shoot you."

He turned his high-voltage smile on her again. "But surely a beautiful woman like you wouldn't shoot me?"

She shot him. He collapsed onto the ground.

"That wasn't a good reason," she said.

"Smoke me a kipper," he gasped. "I'll be back... for break... fast." And died.

* * *

Livejournal ficlet challenge details:  
Requested by: vilakins  
Characters: Tarrant, Soolin  
Title: Ace in the Hole  
Dialogue: "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!"


	12. Opposites Destroy

**Opposites Destroy**

by Kathryn Andersen

**Challenge:** B7 Friday: opposites  
**Words:** 175  
**Summary:** Some B7 prehistory. Written in 2005.

* * *

The madness has come even here. Clive attacked Anna this morning, and if she hadn't been trying out the TK booster she'd be dead.

We are the last ones left. The Sesla station went silent last week. Kate hasn't slept in two days, but it's no good. Researchers, scientists, the best biologists on the planet, and we have not found a cure. To think that a pesticide designed to interfere with the love-life of the lowly fly has instead turned men into homicidal killers. Violence tied to the sexual response. We thought it was just airborne, but it looks as if it's gotten into the food-chain now. No male past puberty is safe.

Civilization is doomed, unless we can find a way to preserve it. We may have to go with Pella's suggestion after all: artificial insemination. Ironic that we have the means all here, deep frozen for safekeeping.

A life without men. But we have no choice; if they live, they will destroy us. What strange world will we build for our daughters' daughters?

* * *

(Idea stolen from "The Screwfly Solution" by James Tiptree Jr.)


	13. Quietus

**Quietus**

by Kathryn Andersen**  
**

**Words:** 612  
Written for b7friday (challenge of 24-06-2005), the request of redstarrobot, "Cally and a carnivorous plant on Saurian Major"

* * *

Alone and silent.

There were too many to bury. The poison had taken them all in the course of a day and a night. It was easier to take supplies and hide them, than to bury the bodies. Besides, if she did, the Federation would know that someone had survived. She knew that they would send someone eventually; someone to count the bodies. She knew the count. She knew the names of the dead. There was none left but her to remember them.

She spent a fitful night, in a small cave not far from the rebel camp, dreaming of cold grey faces, empty eyes staring at her in a world gone dumb.

She woke up to a feeling of contentment, satiation. She stretched languidly before she realised that the feeling was not her own. What? She crept to the opening of the cave and peered down to the disguised camp below. There was no movement, but something was alive down there. She sensed a simple mind, driven by instincts for food, water, procreation. A simple mind, but alien. It was content, because it had just eaten well.

Horror gnawed at the edges of her death-numbed soul when she realised what it was that the alien creature must have just eaten. Saurian Major was full of deserts with poor soil. Many of the plants were carnivorous. A dead human body would be a feast.

"Noooo!" she screamed, running down the scree slope with no regard for caution or sense. _Noooo!_

She could feel its startlement, even before she saw it, red-brown fleshy leaves and roots twined about one of the bodies sprawled in the open on the edge of the camp. It whipped its' flower-like crest around to face her, and radiated wariness.

She was surprised in turn. It was a red-beeble, classified harmless, and taken by some to be a sort of mascot. Evans had claimed that they rattled whenever Federation patrols came near, but everyone had laughed at him.

Why had it gone after a human? It was unheard of.

The plant cringed before her anger, and started twining away from the body.

Away from the _body_. It hadn't gone after a human. It had gone after carrion. Because it had already known that the human was dead; that they were _all_ dead.

Her protective shell of numbness cracked. She fell to her knees and started to cry. She put her face in her hands, trying to stifle her sobs, but they burst from her anyway.

Something brushed against the back of her hands, and with it, came a feeling of concern. Was she wounded? Was she hungry? There was plenty of food to share.

It was the plant. She blinked at it, swaying in front of her. Why had she never sensed its sentience before? Probably because it had been masked in the chatter of all those human minds, all those minds now gone.

Gone forever. What need did they have for their bodies now? They had been destined to rot, rot or be cremated if the soon-to-come Federation patrol decided to burn the disease-cursed camp when they found it. Why should she begrudge the red-beeble its sustenance? One last useful thing their bodies could do.

_Thank you,_ she thought at it. _Thank you and welcome._

She knew what she would do now. Hide the weapons and ammunition, and just enough food and water. Wait, until the Federation found the camp and thought them all dead; and then she would attack the complex, give herself companions for her death.

Because now there would be one being left to remember her.

She would die, but not alone, and not silent.

**~finis~**


	14. Served Cold

**Served Cold**

by Kathryn Andersen

**Challenge:** B7 Friday: PGP  
**Date:** 16 July 2004  
**Words:** 100  
**Summary:** Revenge is a dish best served cold.

* * *

Orac had studied the concept of "blood feud" when it had been investigating the legal systems of Teal and Vandor. It had a geometrical progression that was attractively elegant, while at the same time, it was so humanly crude. Blood for blood.

Orac could see the possible application to the current situation. Why waste its own efforts, when it could recruit others? Others with a personal motive, and ability to act? Servalan's victims were many; and not all were unmourned. All Orac had to do was give the right information to the right people.

Eventually one of them would succeed.


End file.
